Planning to Win: Build Rock-Solid Storytelling Campaigns

Does seeing stories of winning campaigns for marriage equality give you campaign envy? Or, did the last election cycle give you a sense of campaign PTSD? Either way, if you want to create enviable campaigns, we have the tool for you.

Planning to Win is a free, online tool for nonprofits and foundations looking to build rock-solid campaign plans.

Getting started, we help campaigners figure out what path is best for them to pursue:

Policy change campaigns – for those looking to change laws on the local, state or federal level;

Corporate change campaigns - getting businesses to change their approach or practices; or

Behavior change – working to change the actions of specific audiences.

The Planning to Win process includes six stages that help organize thinking, and make sure that all the players – within an organization, and across whole coalitions – are on the same page.

The stages include:

Defining the Victory

Evaluating the Campaign Climate

Charting your Course – setting campaign milestones

Choosing your Influence Strategy

Messaging for Impact – how are you telling the story of your campaign?

Managing the Campaign

Since this is a storytelling blog, it’s worth noting here that Stage Five – Messaging for Impact – is really all about the story of your campaign. It focuses on how to think through the right messages, messengers, activities that will set the right tone, and even the faces of your campaign to make sure that it’s all adding up to a narrative that will move your target audiences.

Each stage includes a series of questions and tip sheets to help guide planners through the process. Both the online version of the tool, and the print guide, are completely free to use. The online tool also has a Google interface that allows you to save your work, share it online with colleagues through Google Docs, and download a Word or Excel doc with your completed campaign plan when you’re done.

This is a great time of year to start your campaign planning for 2015 – so, get crackin!